Rocky Ground
by DinerGuy
Summary: 2018 reboot. An injured Magnum finds himself alone and on the run.


_A/N: Standard disclaimers apply._

* * *

The quiet, peaceful sound of birdsong met him as he came to. It was actually peaceful, Magnum decided. And with the way the pounding in his head seemed to be growing with every passing moment, the temptation to just lie still and listen and perhaps drift back off was strong.

But the longer he was awake, the more his surroundings started to register with him. He could feel sand beneath him, hear what sounded like waves crashing onto a beach, feel the warmth of the sun on his back…

Wait, where was he?

His eyes flew open and caused his headache to flare, and he groaned and lifted a hand to rub at his temple. It did little to alleviate the throbbing, and he frowned as he felt something warm and wet on his fingers. When he lowered his hand, he was greeted by the sight of fresh, red blood, and he blinked at it.

Pushing himself into a sitting position, he glanced around quickly. His vision was going in and out, and he couldn't exactly focus on anything. His searching gaze quickly turned frantic as he tried to interpret what he was seeing.

A beach… no one else around… warm weather… no boats… What…?

He groaned as his head protested his attempts to focus. But he needed to focus, needed to figure out what he was doing here. He was… on a mission? He remembered… he remembered running along the beach… Had he been running to somewhere? From someone? His team was nowhere to be seen, so he couldn't have just landed on a mission. Unless… unless he'd been sent in first?

Why couldn't he remember the details?

The sticky feeling of blood on the side of his face tickled his senses and reminded him of his injury. That certainly explained why he couldn't remember the mission. Although it was an explanation, it wasn't an excuse, and he just hoped he wasn't letting his brothers down by forgetting what he was supposed to be doing.

He took a deep breath as his gut suddenly rolled violently, and he leaned over just as his stomach emptied its contents all over the sand.

The heaving sent waves of pain through his head, and he closed his eyes as he braced himself against the ground. It went on for what felt like an eternity, until the sickening feeling finally subsided. He still stayed hunched over for several long seconds afterward, not fully trusting his stomach. When there didn't seem to be any recurrences of the sensation, he slowly sat back, panting as he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He swallowed hard and coughed as he considered his options.

He didn't know where he was or where his team was, which made him a sitting duck if he stayed out in the open on the beach. Although there was no sign of enemy combatants, that didn't mean there weren't any nearby, and Magnum knew he couldn't afford to stay where he was. Someone had obviously attacked him already, and he couldn't be sure they weren't going to come back to finish the job or dispose of his body. And if they came back to find him alive and awake… well, that wouldn't be good.

The trees off to his left offered shelter, and he pushed heavily to his feet. He felt slow and clumsy as he braced his hands on his knees to stand—and then he paused and frowned in confusion as he realized he was wearing workout shorts and a t-shirt. That made no sense. Why was he on a mission and not wearing the appropriate gear? What could he possibly have been doing that he had absolutely none of his weapons on him?

He groaned as his headache flared and another wave of nausea hit him. Right, now was not the time for trying to think things through. Now was the time for finding cover, and _then_ he could worry about the rest. If he didn't get to safety, it wouldn't matter if he knew what he was supposed to be doing.

Clenching his teeth against the pain in his head, he forced himself to stand upright and headed for the treeline. He stumbled more than once, his feet tripping over themselves and divots in the soft sand, but he finally reached his destination.

He had to pause once he got there, putting his hand up to lean heavily against a tree trunk. His vision was going spotty again, and it was starting to go gray at the edges too. Not a good sign, especially with his head injury. But he knew he couldn't sit around just because he was hurt, so he growled and headed into the brush.

His instincts kicked in and had him checking his trail, making sure he wasn't leaving too many signs behind that hostile forces could follow. Everything became a blur of forging forward, checking his tracks, leaving fake clues when he could—because he knew he couldn't completely avoid leaving a real trail, not in his current state.

He tripped several times, landing heavily in the dirt and leaves. By the fifth time he fell, he was moving so sluggishly he couldn't catch himself, and he hit the ground hard.

He lay still, breathing so heavily he couldn't hear anything else, feeling the sweat dripping down his face and pooling in the small of his back. His mind was shouting at him to get up, even past the buzzing of the headache that had built into almost unbearable agony, but he didn't want to.

He didn't want to get up, to keep going. It was so comfortable on the ground, in the cool dirt, in the shade of the leaves overhead. It would be so easy to just stay where he was…

Something pulled him awake with a jerk. Time had passed; he was sure of it, but the thing that bugged him was that he didn't know _how much_ time had passed. And that was very, very dangerous given his current situation.

He gulped, trying to still his breathing as he listened. There had been a sound, one that definitely did not belong in the forest, that had reached him past the cloudiness keeping him down.

His heart pounded, and his palms felt cold. Something was coming—_someone _was coming. He had to get up. He had to move. He couldn't let them find him. It would mean disaster for his team… wherever they were.

No. He shook his head. He couldn't let himself get distracted again. He was clearly injured and suffering from amnesia, and that was bad enough as it was. But he knew letting himself get caught up in all of the possibilities was just asking for trouble. He couldn't let himself get distracted. He had to focus, had to get himself away from anyone who might be looking for him, and _then _he could worry about the rest.

For all he knew, his team might even be looking for him right then; he had to hold on until they did.

Magnum forced himself to his feet, clenching his jaw and pinching his lips shut to muffle the groan fighting to escape his throat. Everything hurt, his head felt like it was about to explode, and he really thought he might be sick again. But he couldn't let himself give into the pain. That was the worst thing he could do right then.

Hide. That's what he needed to do. Find someplace to hole up and wait things out. He glanced around and then forced himself to move deeper into the vegetation. He squinted desperately against the fog obscuring his sight, searching for a potential hiding place.

More sounds came from behind him, crashing in the underbrush, and panic flared in his chest. Something told him he only had moments before he was found, urged him to hide, to find cover. His stomach clenched and rolled, threatening to spill over, and he tamped down on the feeling as hard as he could.

There! Off to the right. It wasn't much of a hiding place, but it was better than nothing, and the sounds behind him told him he had no time to find anything better. And so he ducked down, scrambling through the bushes, ducking into a small copse formed by several thick bushes growing around a sturdy tree. He reached out, rearranging the branches he'd pushed through to get to where he now sat, then moved back until he felt the tree trunk at his back.

He lay down then, flattening himself to the ground, trying to make himself as small as possible. What he wouldn't give for camouflage and grease paint… at least the shirt he was wearing was a dark gray, his shorts black, but there was still far too much skin showing, too much of a chance of someone catching sight of him.

And then he heard the voices, shouting from a distance. He couldn't make out what they were saying, but it didn't matter. His team would never be making such a racket. They knew the importance of clandestine operations. Quiet was important; quiet kept them alive. Noise meant discovery, and discovery meant death.

He sucked in a breath, closing his eyes as the world wobbled around him. Even though it hadn't seemed possible, his headache had only continued to grow since he'd woken on the beach, and it was overwhelming now. He tried to stuff the pain into a back corner of his mind, to focus on what needed to be done, but that was getting harder and harder to keep up, and the pounding was just getting worse and worse…

It was only when he heard feet shuffling very near his hiding place that he realized he'd drifted off again. That was bad. He needed to stay awake, to keep alert, and he'd failed. He'd let down his guard, and now his pursuers were so close he could practically hear them breathing—

No, wait, that was _his _breathing. He immediately clamped his mouth shut, trying to silence his panting. His hand itched to cover it, but he knew he couldn't move or they'd hear the sound of shifting leaves. So he just clenched his teeth tighter and tried to breathe slowly through his nose. It was all he could do, and he hoped it was enough. It would have to be.

"Magnum!"

The shout almost made him jerk his head up, but he caught himself at the last moment. Why were they yelling his name? For that matter, how did they know his name? His team knew his name and might even be looking for him right then, but they would know not to yell for him. They would know how bad that would be in enemy territory.

So that only left the _other_ guys, but how did they know his name? Had they captured his team? Was he the only one left? Was that how he'd been injured? He swallowed and tried to shrink back, to make himself even smaller.

"Magnum!" It was the voice again, and he concentrated on it now. Female. Accented—British, his mind supplied, although he didn't know how he knew that.

There was something about it… something that sparked a flicker of a memory. It was as if his mind wanted to recognize it, but he just couldn't. The pain and dizziness clouding his concentration kept the identity of whoever it was from him. He wanted to trust it, felt like maybe he could, but something was holding him back.

"Thomas!" Now a second voice joined in with the first, this one male, American.

Magnum frowned even as he still held his breath and tried to stay as low as possible. He knew that voice; he just couldn't put a name or face to it. But he knew it… _how _did he know it?

The memory of a helicopter flashed into his mind, staggering his headache with its suddenness, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

"He must have come through here," the man spoke up.

Magnum froze. He must have not done as well at hiding his tracks as he'd thought. That was not good.

"Mm," the woman hummed in agreement. "The question is where he's gone now."

There was the sound of more footsteps, and then Magnum caught sight of two pairs of legs moving into view through the gaps in the bushes. They were so close… He held as still as he could. If he so much as moved a muscle, they might notice.

"If he's not thinking clearly, he might be trying to hide," came the male voice again. "It's possible he heard us coming and is trying to lie low." The man sounded… odd. Like he was worried. Which didn't make sense if he was trying to hunt Magnum down.

Another pair of footsteps now and another voice, this one also belonging to an American.

"No luck that way; he must've laid out a false trail for us."

Again, Magnum was struck with the thought that he should know who this man was, but his memory failed him. And his head was throbbing harder with the exertion, so much so that he felt himself starting to fall back into the darkness again.

He fought against the urge, knowing he couldn't fall asleep. He had to stay awake, had to stay still until the search party left and he knew he was safe, but the lure of unconsciousness was strong…

"Thomas!"

The quiet exclamation woke him with a start, and Magnum blinked at the face in front of him.

And then it clicked that they'd found him, and he was sitting up so fast his head spun and made him cry out at the searing pain ripping through his skull. But he didn't stop to pay attention to it; he was already on his hands and knees, scrambling backward away from the man who'd discovered him.

Everything in him shouted that he needed to run, but he couldn't seem to find his footing. He was panting heavily now as he felt the tree trunk at his back, and all he could do was shake his head as he watched the other man warily.

For his part, the guy had frozen in place the minute Magnum had started moving, and his blue eyes looked sad. "Hey," he said quietly, and Magnum recognized the voice as the newest arrival to the search party, the one who'd discovered the fake trail was fake. "Hey, it's all right. Nobody's gonna hurt you."

Magnum shook his head, panic making his heart race. He couldn't let himself believe it. This had to be a tactic to get him to let down his guard. He just needed to figure out how to get to his feet to try to get away. He _had _to get away…

"Tommy."

That made him pause.

"Hey, T.M.; it's just us," came the first guy's voice.

Magnum swallowed.

"Come on… Hey, you know us. Rick and T.C.," the one with the blue eyes continued. "You're safe, okay? You're on Robin's estate."

Robin… Magnum frowned. Why did that sound so familiar?

The men seemed to have noticed his change in expression, because they both smiled encouragingly at him.

"Mhm, yeah, you're in Hawaii. You slipped during your run on the beach and hit your head. We found the rock you hit when you fell," the big guy, the first voice Magnum had heard after the Englishwoman's, told him. "We've been worried about you, man."

Wait… he'd been out on a run? Not a mission? That… didn't sound familiar. But maybe it made sense. It certainly explained his attire.

"Paramedics are on their way," the woman said, her face appearing behind the men's.

Magnum blinked as he took in her blonde hair and concerned expression. Did he know her…? He certainly felt like he did, but it was the same as when he looked at either of the other two. There was something so familiar about them, but it was like an itch at the back of his brain he couldn't quite scratch.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He should relax, should go with them, he knew that. But he couldn't find the energy to move any farther. His legs felt weak, and his head…

The smaller guy was talking again, holding out his hand to Magnum, but the darkness swirling around the fringes of reality started to steadily grow and overwhelm everything else.

Magnum barely had time to notice how worried the three people—his friends? his teammates?—in front of him looked before he slumped back against the tree.

* * *

"Really, guys, I'm fine!" Magnum protested as he leaned into a stretch.

Beside him on the beach, Rick raised an eyebrow as he straightened up from his own stretching. "Come on, after what happened last time? You're lucky we're even letting you go running at all."

Magnum huffed in complaint. "That was an accident!"

"Accident or not, you still whacked your head hard enough to make you forget the past five years," T.C. tsked. "Do you know how long it took us to find you? Nope, we are not losing you again."

Rick nodded. "Which means you get company if you want to go running the minute your doc gives you the okay to work out again."

Footsteps had the three of them looking over at where Higgins was just joining them, and Rick and T.C. smirked as Magnum took an involuntary step backward at the sight of the two large dogs who'd accompanied her.

"Jules, you should've brought Zeus and Apollo on the search for Tommy," Rick remarked with a grin. "Too bad they were at the vet; we could've saved ourselves a lot of time and effort."

"Hey!" Magnum protested. In response to the looks the others were giving him, he raised his hands and shook his head. "Okay, okay," he admitted with a chuckle. "I guess you're right. Those velociraptors are pretty unforgettable."

Higgins rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "What do you say, race down to the bend? I don't believe there are any rocks along this stretch of beach," she added, shooting a mischievous look Magnum's way.

He just shook his head as he lined up alongside the others, grinning as T.C. and Rick suddenly took off before the count, yelling and playfully insulting each other the whole way. It had taken some time, but he was back, and he couldn't be more grateful for his friends—his team. They were his family—not counting Higgy's hellhounds, of course—and he knew they'd never leave him behind.

* * *

_Fin._


End file.
